Back in the 80s we visited The Tales of Robin Hood in Nottingham. It was a fab fun experience and if I remember correctly there was a quiz asking who you thought Robin Hood really was after reading their various suggestions during the tour. I believe it closed in 2009. Pity as it was a great day out. 🏹
Yeah there was an excavation of a pub car park under a golf corse was it 2015? In Huddersfield. But them nothing really came of it. I tried visiting the place recently to have a look but they are very quick to pick up on people turn up at the car park
If there was an Arthur-like figure, then he was from the southwest. The best candidate for his base is Cadbury Castle in Somerset. It was an ancient hill fort, which was reoccupied at the appropriate time. It is the only such hill fort known to have been reoccupied.
What a fascinating topic I never really thought about who the real King Arthur or Robin Hood were or if they existed though it certainly is plausible that they aren’t the same people who they may have been based off of. This highlights how as a historian, investigating the past requires us to look deeper into not only the accounts of what happened but who wrote them (I.e was it a first hand account or a later recalling, and if they had any ideological reasoning that they wanted to justify or omit) which often can feel like putting a jigsaw puzzle together to create a whole and unbiased picture (reminding me of when I studied Whig vs Tory historical interpretations of the Glorious Revolution which eventually led to the end of Stuart rule in Britain).
Everything in life is a belief system The truth tends to be ugly as people sadly behave ugly to eachother... Yet people's pride and the guiltily refuse the truth and much prefer the artistic versions... We get lovely stories Hiding a not so lovely past..
It does feel a bit like Santa Claus, when you have to tell someone he probably wasn't real - and any real origin for King Arthur would be vastly different to the mythology like you say. There were some monks and chroniclers around during his supposed lifetime (Gildas), and none of them mentioned a King Arthur in their writing. I saw a documentary on RUclips that suggested that since he was only written after his supposed lifetime and death, that he was likely a story/construction of a native british general that people wish existed to save them from Saxon invadors. A legend that could have turned the the tide of battle in fighting these Saxons.
"to save them from Saxon invaders" - during the 'Arthurian period' the Saxons were halted. Gildas says this culminated at Mon Baddon, nobody knows where that might be though. And that he was born the year it occurred too. They only resume expanding in the mid-6th century, after any sort of Arthur-figure would have passed away and no longer the "Dux Bellorum".
As a Brit we will never give up on our once and future King and all of our heroes!. Dislike that as much as you want to. For they are needed in these most perilous times.
Hi Katherine. Your video has cheered me up after a truly crappy day. I’m a child of the 60s and remember Richard Greene and I think children knew it was a made up program. Anyway well done and a pleasure.
I've always thought that part of the reason for shifting Robin Hood from the 14th to the early 13th century was the story of Willikin of the Weald who, in 1216-17, raised a corps of 1200 archers from the Kentish forest to harass the invading French army which was supporting the Barons against the forces of the infant Henry III.
So many small story's and deeds of robin hood in villages and towns all over the country apparently he was able to throw giant rocks from sowerby all the way to boulderclough in the valley bottom which is some feat believe me. Edit so basicly he was a medevil superman. ....that might explain the tights .
In A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode the Robin Hood is a good yeoman and proud outlaw who lives in the Barnsdale Forest during the reign of some King Edward. Few even recognize this Robin Hood or accept this version of him. He is not even the leader of the group and that title belongs to the Little John. The story also lacks the friar Tuck and the only beloved Mary is the biblical virgin. However, we can’t get any closer to the real Robin Hood.
I feel partially responsible for encouraging this well articulated rant with our previous discussions having initiated your impassioned rebukes towards your two favourite contentious historical Yorkshiremen. I wonder what your thoughts on Cocidius a.ka. Cernunnos would be? Apparently he's one of the original figures, morphing into 'The Green Man' who eventually evolved into Santa Claus!
@@CatherineWarr Yeah - I picked that out too when I was watching him. That's the problem you get when you include large segments on the Norse and Vikings. You end up attracting misguided identity seekers harking back to some fabricated idealisation of a lost utopian culture. Wagner. Nietsche. Another name I won't bother repeating which ends in 'er'. That's the sound we should make instead -"eerrrr" or "uuugghhh". Ah - the 1930s.....so much to answer for. So much more than the setting down for the modern age of the 'Green Man Myth'...
@@CatherineWarr You're right to be wary of extremism but it's always best to keep a balanced and open mind away from mass-hysteria. StJ himself is pretty cool and obviously respects and admires all races and cultures. I've learned a lot from him! Also check out Simon Roper on here :)
Oh, I get it Jack The Ripper was really King Arthur! No . . . King Arthur was the real Robin Hood! No . . .Robin Hood was really Jack The Ripper! OK. John Cleese was the real Dennis Moore and nobody ever found his treasure chest of lupins.
I just came here from atun-shei's video on puritainism. Going looking for 'the real king arthur/robin hood' isn't really about finding a historical figure for these people, although you can have hilarious trips while doing so (rip Michael Abney-Hastings, The Real King of England). The real reason they're doing this is because someone will watch them, which means someone will pay for them to ~~drink it all away and then scrap together something in the last day~~ ~~run about in the woods or ruins looking like a numpty~~ do long detailed research based on primary sources and come up with a sensible conclusion While this can be detrimental (the amount of wehraboos spawned from watching the history channel in the 1990s is quite considerable, I was one of them) this can also be good entertainment if you go in knowing what you're getting is snake-oil. To quote an egyptian priest from a live-action Moses miniseries from a few years ago "better that there are thousand gods, if only to keep us priests employed"
the story behind robin hood was a spin to show the norman ruling classes had become truly anglicized by lord robin having been accepted into the ranks of the Saxon insurgency.
So the Merlin being an alien as postulated in Stargate SG-1 is as good a story as any other? Actually, I love all the legends and might not like stories that get too accurate. “Studies [on the origin of fairy-stories] are, however, scientific (at least in intent); they are the pursuit of folklorists or anthropologists: that is of people using the stories not as they were meant to be used, but as a quarry from which to dig evidence, or information, about matters in which they are interested. ...with regard to fairy stories, I feel that it is more interesting, and also in its way more difficult, to consider what they are, what they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them. In Dasent's words I would say: 'We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.' Such stories have now a mythical or total (unanalysable) effect, an effect quite independent of the findings of Comparative Folk-lore, and one which it cannot spoil or explain; they open a door on Other Time, and if we pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside Time itself, maybe.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien on Fairy-stories
But I love your videos because I believe your intent is to stir interest, not to create separate piles of data that destroy the wonder and joy we feel when we learn about new things.
Lost in Space meet Thor and Valkyrie from Norse mythology and Chronos the lord of time from Greek Mythology, Star Trek meet Appollo from Greek Mythology and The Gorn sort of resemble Crocodile headed God from Egyptian mythology. The Romulans also were inspired by the Romans and called some soldiers Centurions, and their planets were Romulus and Remis named after supposed founders of Rome. Star Trek also had a couple resembling devil worshipers one was a bald guy with a wand and his wife shrunk them and she turned into a cat to chase them.
I understand your rant, but the whole point of searching for the real King Arthur is that you strip away the fanciful, romantic, chivalrous knight of the likes of Tennyson. In doing so, hopefully you will arrive at the real historical figure that was King Arthur. To say we should not try to find out the truth when the opportunity presents itself is not what history is about. We search for the truth, we search for the proof of that truth. I have mentioned the place names below to answer Gwynn Williams in the assertion that the real King Arthur was a true, living king of Glamorgan, as was taught to Welsh students for centuaries at school. As you mentioned in your later video, Caroline, place names often hold clues to a past that is often forgotten elsewhere. It is one of the key pieces of evidence that caused the researchers in this case to pursue the evidence and see where it ended. A point of fact is that both Gildas and Geoffrey of Monmouth were Welsh, and the latter states that he was translating much earlier Welsh documents (now lost), when he wrote his version of the history at Oxford. More evidence that confirms we are dealing with a Welsh king. The evidence now includes an archaelogical dig by professional archaelogical diggers from the University of Glasgow. It's all fascinating, wether you choose to believe it or not, and I certainly do not believe some of the wilder theories proposed. I do belive there was an identifiable individual known as King Arthur. Further evidence, controversial as it all is, suggests there may well have been a King Arthur I and a great-grandson, a King Arthur II. Proof that searching for history always throws up something unexpected.
When I was younger I was really into the "real" Arthur. I've always loved ancient mysteries and still do.I don't know if you;ve read MYthago Wood but I think now that he's become part of our DNA, like a Jungian archetype. The story triggers something in me and that if nothing else is very real. When I watched Robin of Sherwood in the 80s the sight of Herne the Hunter, a grizzled saxon warrior with a stag headdress, emerging from the trees triggered something in me and still does. THere's something there buried deep in my subconscious, something passed down from my ancestors maybe. I dunno. As for Arthur, when I saw the Artognou stone which was found on Tintagel of all places I kind of knew there was something real at the bottom of it all. And druidry lasted well into the medieval period so I'm not ruling out Merlin! I've even heard there's elements of bronze age rituals in the Arthurian tale. When swords were made in the bronze age they were cast in stone moulds then pulled out when cool. Who knows!
I think you're doing a bit of having your cake and eating it too, you are right about the mountain of 'popular history' works "solving" arthur/the ripper/JFK assassination/etc but you then expand this to rubbish the whole field of interest in Arthur as a historical figure while also saying its okay to be interested. You cant do both.
You're taking a big gamble upsetting the Arthurphiles, lass!
Arthur was a welsh Chad.
"I basically have zero impulse control"
Me too because I'm sat here like YOU HAVE A CAT, HE'S ORANGE. SHOW US THE ORANGE CAT MORE.
Back in the 80s we visited The Tales of Robin Hood in Nottingham. It was a fab fun experience and if I remember correctly there was a quiz asking who you thought Robin Hood really was after reading their various suggestions during the tour. I believe it closed in 2009. Pity as it was a great day out. 🏹
There is a replacement venue just around the corner - The Robin Hood Experience.
Yes, but I once read that Camelot was actually very near my house in Huddersfield so I’m clinging to it!
Yeah there was an excavation of a pub car park under a golf corse was it 2015? In Huddersfield. But them nothing really came of it. I tried visiting the place recently to have a look but they are very quick to pick up on people turn up at the car park
If there was an Arthur-like figure, then he was from the southwest. The best candidate for his base is Cadbury Castle in Somerset. It was an ancient hill fort, which was reoccupied at the appropriate time. It is the only such hill fort known to have been reoccupied.
What a fascinating topic I never really thought about who the real King Arthur or Robin Hood were or if they existed though it certainly is plausible that they aren’t the same people who they may have been based off of.
This highlights how as a historian, investigating the past requires us to look deeper into not only the accounts of what happened but who wrote them (I.e was it a first hand account or a later recalling, and if they had any ideological reasoning that they wanted to justify or omit) which often can feel like putting a jigsaw puzzle together to create a whole and unbiased picture (reminding me of when I studied Whig vs Tory historical interpretations of the Glorious Revolution which eventually led to the end of Stuart rule in Britain).
Everything in life is a belief system
The truth tends to be ugly as people sadly behave ugly to eachother...
Yet people's pride and the guiltily refuse the truth and much prefer the artistic versions...
We get lovely stories
Hiding a not so lovely past..
It does feel a bit like Santa Claus, when you have to tell someone he probably wasn't real - and any real origin for King Arthur would be vastly different to the mythology like you say. There were some monks and chroniclers around during his supposed lifetime (Gildas), and none of them mentioned a King Arthur in their writing.
I saw a documentary on RUclips that suggested that since he was only written after his supposed lifetime and death, that he was likely a story/construction of a native british general that people wish existed to save them from Saxon invadors. A legend that could have turned the the tide of battle in fighting these Saxons.
Gildas does mention the chariot of the great bear...
"to save them from Saxon invaders" - during the 'Arthurian period' the Saxons were halted. Gildas says this culminated at Mon Baddon, nobody knows where that might be though. And that he was born the year it occurred too. They only resume expanding in the mid-6th century, after any sort of Arthur-figure would have passed away and no longer the "Dux Bellorum".
@@pumbar Yes he is especially vehement criticizing five kings calling one of them a 'dragon' and another a 'bear'
@@kentallard8852 And Arth is Brythonic for bear.
@@pumbar If that etymology is to be accepted, like a lot of things it is disputed. And also like a lot of things involved it is a big coincidence.
As a Ripper fan I totally understand your rant. I'm the same not another blooming Ripper book but Criminology and Serial Killers fascinate me.
As a Brit we will never give up on our once and future King and all of our heroes!. Dislike that as much as you want to. For they are needed in these most perilous times.
Hi Katherine. Your video has cheered me up after a truly crappy day. I’m a child of the 60s and remember Richard Greene and I think children knew it was a made up program. Anyway well done and a pleasure.
I've always thought that part of the reason for shifting Robin Hood from the 14th to the early 13th century was the story of Willikin of the Weald who, in 1216-17, raised a corps of 1200 archers from the Kentish forest to harass the invading French army which was supporting the Barons against the forces of the infant Henry III.
I read it was to avoid accusations of treason, that the writer was really commenting on the reign of Edward III
@@kentallard8852 surely Edward II?
So many small story's and deeds of robin hood in villages and towns all over the country apparently he was able to throw giant rocks from sowerby all the way to boulderclough in the valley bottom which is some feat believe me. Edit so basicly he was a medevil superman. ....that might explain the tights .
The origins of mythological people and places should be left to our own imagination.
Catherine just popped a few balloons lol
Everybody knows the real Robin Hood, is Errol Flynn.😆
Informative as always.
In A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode the Robin Hood is a good yeoman and proud outlaw who lives in the Barnsdale Forest during the reign of some King Edward. Few even recognize this Robin Hood or accept this version of him. He is not even the leader of the group and that title belongs to the Little John. The story also lacks the friar Tuck and the only beloved Mary is the biblical virgin. However, we can’t get any closer to the real Robin Hood.
I feel partially responsible for encouraging this well articulated rant with our previous discussions having initiated your impassioned rebukes towards your two favourite contentious historical Yorkshiremen. I wonder what your thoughts on Cocidius a.ka. Cernunnos would be? Apparently he's one of the original figures, morphing into 'The Green Man' who eventually evolved into Santa Claus!
@@CatherineWarr Check out Survive the Jive's youtube channel. Lots of ancient English stuff in a very academic fashion
@@CatherineWarr Yeah - I picked that out too when I was watching him. That's the problem you get when you include large segments on the Norse and Vikings. You end up attracting misguided identity seekers harking back to some fabricated idealisation of a lost utopian culture. Wagner. Nietsche. Another name I won't bother repeating which ends in 'er'. That's the sound we should make instead -"eerrrr" or "uuugghhh". Ah - the 1930s.....so much to answer for. So much more than the setting down for the modern age of the 'Green Man Myth'...
@@CatherineWarr You're right to be wary of extremism but it's always best to keep a balanced and open mind away from mass-hysteria. StJ himself is pretty cool and obviously respects and admires all races and cultures. I've learned a lot from him! Also check out Simon Roper on here :)
@@nodarkthings So, why does he wear a Nazi associated emblem on his lapel?
www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/de%7Dnaz.html#ahf
@@daveh3997 which symbol is that?
Oh, I get it Jack The Ripper was really King Arthur!
No . . . King Arthur was the real Robin Hood!
No . . .Robin Hood was really Jack The Ripper!
OK. John Cleese was the real Dennis Moore and nobody ever found his treasure chest of lupins.
It's obvious what really happened: King Arthur, Robin Hood, and Jack the Ripper were the three tramps picked up in Dallas after the JFK assassination
Ope that's YORKSHIRE tea tha's drinking Catherine ☕🫖😄
I hope you've watched Excalibur the John Boorman version
I just came here from atun-shei's video on puritainism. Going looking for 'the real king arthur/robin hood' isn't really about finding a historical figure for these people, although you can have hilarious trips while doing so (rip Michael Abney-Hastings, The Real King of England). The real reason they're doing this is because someone will watch them, which means someone will pay for them to
~~drink it all away and then scrap together something in the last day~~
~~run about in the woods or ruins looking like a numpty~~
do long detailed research based on primary sources and come up with a sensible conclusion
While this can be detrimental (the amount of wehraboos spawned from watching the history channel in the 1990s is quite considerable, I was one of them) this can also be good entertainment if you go in knowing what you're getting is snake-oil.
To quote an egyptian priest from a live-action Moses miniseries from a few years ago "better that there are thousand gods, if only to keep us priests employed"
the story behind robin hood was a spin to show the norman ruling classes had become truly anglicized by lord robin having been accepted into the ranks of the Saxon insurgency.
King Arthur = Sean Connery & Robin Hood = “guy” in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe!
Agreed
ok legend (get it)
From Canada: you mean Kevin Costner 's Robin Hood isn't true...??!!
There was no gunpowder available in 12th centaury England. A regular rant of mine at Costner's Hollywood durp.
So the Merlin being an alien as postulated in Stargate SG-1 is as good a story as any other?
Actually, I love all the legends and might not like stories that get too accurate.
“Studies [on the origin of fairy-stories] are, however, scientific (at least in intent); they are the pursuit of folklorists or anthropologists: that is of people using the stories not as they were meant to be used, but as a quarry from which to dig evidence, or information, about matters in which they are interested.
...with regard to fairy stories, I feel that it is more interesting, and also in its way more difficult, to consider what they are, what they have become for us, and what values the long alchemic processes of time have produced in them. In Dasent's words I would say: 'We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.'
Such stories have now a mythical or total (unanalysable) effect, an effect quite independent of the findings of Comparative Folk-lore, and one which it cannot spoil or explain; they open a door on Other Time, and if we pass through, though only for a moment, we stand outside our own time, outside Time itself, maybe.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien on Fairy-stories
But I love your videos because I believe your intent is to stir interest, not to create separate piles of data that destroy the wonder and joy we feel when we learn about new things.
Lost in Space meet Thor and Valkyrie from Norse mythology and Chronos the lord of time from Greek Mythology, Star Trek meet Appollo from Greek Mythology and The Gorn sort of resemble Crocodile headed God from Egyptian mythology. The Romulans also were inspired by the Romans and called some soldiers Centurions, and their planets were Romulus and Remis named after supposed founders of Rome. Star Trek also had a couple resembling devil worshipers one was a bald guy with a wand and his wife shrunk them and she turned into a cat to chase them.
Mr. Spock was a Vulcan named after Roman god of fire.
I understand your rant, but the whole point of searching for the real King Arthur is that you strip away the fanciful, romantic, chivalrous knight of the likes of Tennyson. In doing so, hopefully you will arrive at the real historical figure that was King Arthur. To say we should not try to find out the truth when the opportunity presents itself is not what history is about. We search for the truth, we search for the proof of that truth.
I have mentioned the place names below to answer Gwynn Williams in the assertion that the real King Arthur was a true, living king of Glamorgan, as was taught to Welsh students for centuaries at school. As you mentioned in your later video, Caroline, place names often hold clues to a past that is often forgotten elsewhere. It is one of the key pieces of evidence that caused the researchers in this case to pursue the evidence and see where it ended.
A point of fact is that both Gildas and Geoffrey of Monmouth were Welsh, and the latter states that he was translating much earlier Welsh documents (now lost), when he wrote his version of the history at Oxford. More evidence that confirms we are dealing with a Welsh king.
The evidence now includes an archaelogical dig by professional archaelogical diggers from the University of Glasgow. It's all fascinating, wether you choose to believe it or not, and I certainly do not believe some of the wilder theories proposed. I do belive there was an identifiable individual known as King Arthur. Further evidence, controversial as it all is, suggests there may well have been a King Arthur I and a great-grandson, a King Arthur II. Proof that searching for history always throws up something unexpected.
You really have to be careful about the etymology in trying to link place names.
Just don't meet your heroes?
When I was younger I was really into the "real" Arthur. I've always loved ancient mysteries and still do.I don't know if you;ve read MYthago Wood but I think now that he's become part of our DNA, like a Jungian archetype. The story triggers something in me and that if nothing else is very real. When I watched Robin of Sherwood in the 80s the sight of Herne the Hunter, a grizzled saxon warrior with a stag headdress, emerging from the trees triggered something in me and still does. THere's something there buried deep in my subconscious, something passed down from my ancestors maybe. I dunno. As for Arthur, when I saw the Artognou stone which was found on Tintagel of all places I kind of knew there was something real at the bottom of it all. And druidry lasted well into the medieval period so I'm not ruling out Merlin! I've even heard there's elements of bronze age rituals in the Arthurian tale. When swords were made in the bronze age they were cast in stone moulds then pulled out when cool. Who knows!
The 5th and 6th Century were long after the Bronze Age. His sword would have been a simple Roman spartha.
I think you're doing a bit of having your cake and eating it too, you are right about the mountain of 'popular history' works "solving" arthur/the ripper/JFK assassination/etc but you then expand this to rubbish the whole field of interest in Arthur as a historical figure while also saying its okay to be interested. You cant do both.
Robin Hood was Robin of Loxley, Loxley was a village close to Sheffield, in Yorkshire. Robin Hood was a Yorkshireman!
Robin would of been a thief who bribed the villages to keep quiet